Regular practice is essential to achieving competency in the game of golf. Golfing centers offering the golfer hitting areas to practice and improve their game are highly popular. Such practice areas, often called driving ranges, often employ synthetic mats off of which a ball may be hit with a club. Unfortunately, many artificial golf hitting areas do not allow for the golfer to control the horizontal and vertical orientation of the golf ball to better emulate the conditions golfers experience on a golf course.
Various prior art solutions exist to create a practice device where the surface thereof can be adjusted in some way so as to vary its angle relative to the horizontal in order to provide a more realistic practice surface for golfers. These devices can be difficult to operate, and are usually so heavy that they must essentially remain in one location because of the difficulty in moving them. They may require complicated and expensive hydraulic mechanisms to operate, electrical power for motors associated with the device, and metal framework to support the weight of the platform surface as well as the golfer when practicing.
Various devices for tilting golf practice platforms have been proposed. However, no solution currently exists that enables the golfer to independently alter the orientation and plane of both the golf ball and the golfer's stance. Nor is there a solution that provides these features in a light weight and portable construction. What is needed, therefore, is a golf practice apparatus that is both portable, and capable of manipulating the orientation and plane of a golfer's stance and the position of the golf ball. The inventors have developed a solution that is embodied by the present invention, which is described in detail below.